After two days at sea, we arrived at the port of Vigo, Spain. Vigo is a city on the northwest coast of Spain. Fortunately we didn’t have any excursions scheduled for this port because Bill was not feeling well from his cold and cough. Since it was a short walk from the ship to the city center, we decided to go into the city for an hour or two depending on how Bill was feeling.

Marina and Our Ship In The Background

We wandered through Casco Vello (the old quarter) and we were pleasantly surprised to see it decorated for Christmas, including a huge Christmas tree. There were musicians playing in the street, giving the area a lively feeling.
We were immediately charmed by the architecture with wrought iron balconies. Many of the buildings are made of granite.
We saw the Mermaid Man or Merman. It is the first European sculpture made of aluminum.
We walked into the beautiful Basilica Santa Maria, a Roman Catholic Church dating back to the 12th century. It was burned down by Sir Francis Drake’s soldiers in 1585 and rebuilt in the early 19th century.

Church Bell Tower

We certainly enjoyed our short time in Vigo, Spain.

Our cruise ship is registered in Hamilton Bermuda and this it their flag.

Next up: Ponte Delgada, Portugal

The Canary Islands are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. On November 8th we arrived at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the first of three ports we visited in the Canary Islands. This island is one of two capitals of the Canary Islands which are owned by Spain. It is located 130 miles off the northwest coast of Africa and 810 miles from mainland Spain. Tenerife is the largest, most visited and most populous of the Canary Islands with a population of 968,000.

Auditorio de Tenerife Adán Martín: Seafront arts complex & auditorium housed in a landmark building with futuristic, curving design.

We booked an excursion to Teide National Park, with Mt Teide being the highest point in Spain at 12,198 feet. The volcano activity that formed the island is evident throughout the park. In the park are volcanic formations, craters, previous lava flows and unique flora. The volcano here is the third largest volcano in the world.
We were amazed how people have built homes and communities up against the mountains of lava fields. It was a very interesting day but it is very hard for me to get up and down the stairs on these big buses with my back brace. The steps are usually steep and curve as they go up and they scare me. So often I would sit on the bus while Bill got off at different viewpoints to take the pictures.

The roads in the park were curvy and narrow.  When two buses passed each other they were so close the sides of the buses almost touched. At least one time the buses had to adjust forward and backward to miss a high jagged rock formation. In popular viewpoints people visiting the park would park their cars along the side of the roads making the roads even more narrow. Some local musicians and dancers entertained us on the ship.

The next day we visited the island of La Palma where the volcanic landscape was very similar to Tenerife. We walked into town but since it was Sunday, very few stores were open.José Francisco de Arce y Rojas was born in Santa Cruz de La Palma and savagely killed in Brazil by the Payaguás Indians of the Mato Grosso (Brazil) on December 15, 1715 (film The Mission 1986).

Mcdonalds had Beer and No Milkshakes

In the Cruise Terminal was this Mermaid and her Cat

Our last stop was the island of Arrecife, Lanzarote. No shuttle was provided and it was too far for me to walk into town. People who had walked into town earlier said there wasn’t much to see so we didn’t think it was worth the price of a taxi there and back. We did walk along the pier to Harbor Rock where we logged a geocache. The huge Harbor Rock is an example of the volcanic rock found in the Canary Islands.
Fun fact: The Canary Islands are for the Latin word for dog, “canaria,” meaning “of the dogs”. This name was first given by ancient Roman expeditions who found the islands inhabited by large, fierce dogs or possibly seals that the Romans called “sea dogs”. Canary birds, native to the islands, were named after the islands themselves, not the other way around.